'The people who talked politics instead of unity and patriotism have been punished'

Narendra Modi is general secretary of the BJP

The people who toppled Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government have been thoroughly punished. The people who talked politics instead of unity and patriotism have been punished by the country. In this election, the Congress got the lowest-ever tally, the leftists and the pseudo-secularists have been punished.

When Sonia Gandhi came as Congress president and there were four state elections -- in Rajasthan, Delhi, MP and Goa -- the Congress won. But when asked to vote for her as prime minister, all four states rejected her. This result shows that country is not ready to accept Sonia as prime minister.

In UP, we don't have a comfortable majority. We are a minority government there. So we have to face constraints when it comes to delivering the goods. Then there was tactical voting between the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress. As far as the Bharatiya Janata Party is concerned, our vote share is the same. But because of this tactical voting, we lost the votes.

In Punjab, the BJP is a very, very, very minor party. We were contesting only three seats. Out of three, we won one.